Status: 05.10.2022 12:51 p.m
About every fifth person in Germany is in the lowest income bracket and has to make do with a net income of less than 16,300 euros per year. Almost a third cannot meet unexpected expenses.
In Germany, two-fifths of people had to make do with a net income of less than 22,000 euros in 2021, as the Federal Statistical Office announced today. On the other hand, two fifths (40 percent) of the population had an income of 28,400 euros and more.
A fifth of the population only had a so-called net equivalent income of less than 16,300 euros per year. This is a per capita income adjusted for savings effects in multi-person households.
Lots of low-income single parents
According to the statisticians, the 40 percent of the population with the lowest incomes often include people from single-parent households. Almost two thirds (64.6 percent) of them had a net equivalent income of less than 22,000 euros per year in 2021, and a good third (33.2 percent) had less than 16,300 euros.
One of the 40 percent with the lowest incomes is an above-average number of single parents. Almost two thirds (64.6 percent) of them had a net equivalent income of less than 22,000 euros per year in 2021, and a good third (33.2) had less than 16,300 euros.
The more children, the lower the income
The same applies to people in households with two adults and three or more children: 57.7 percent of them had a net income of less than 22,000 euros. For people in households with two adults and two children or one child, this applied to 36.0 and 29.7 percent, respectively.
But there are also many adults living alone in the lowest income groups: more than half (53.2 percent) of this group earns less than 22,000 euros a year, almost a third (32.2 percent) of those living alone have an income of less than 16,300 euros .
Around half (50.1 percent) of retired people also had a net income of less than 22,000 euros in 2021, and almost a quarter (24.6 percent) had less than 16,300 euros at their disposal.
Many cannot afford unexpected expenses
Against this background, it is hardly surprising that almost a third of the people in Germany have unexpected expenses that exceed their own financial means. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 31.9 percent of the population in this country was unable to spontaneously raise 1150 euros or more from their budget last year.
According to calculations by the Wiesbaden statisticians, this group was larger in Germany than in France (27.6 percent) and the Netherlands (15.1 percent). According to the authority on Wednesday, more than 40 percent of the population in Romania, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus and Latvia did not have sufficient financial reserves for unplanned major expenses.
Loss of income warning
Meanwhile, the economist Gabriel Felbermayr expects a significantly higher loss of prosperity in Germany than previous economic forecasts suggest. Felbermayr told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the income of citizens will not grow by 1.4 percent in 2022, as the four leading economic research institutes assumed in their joint autumn report last week.
According to his own study, the economist expects the purchasing power of Germans to fall by around 1.3 percent this year. As justification, the head of the Vienna-based Austrian Institute for Economic Research refers to the high import prices for gas and oil, for example, which are not taken into account when calculating real gross domestic product (GDP) and thus overall economic income.
Historical loss of purchasing power ahead?
Next year, the decline in purchasing power could even be around four percent, according to Felbermayr. This assessment corresponds to the forecasts of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy: The IfW experts assume that the purchasing power of Germans will fall by 4.1 percent in the coming year – and thus more sharply than ever before in reunified Germany.